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Mr Mac Taggart said: “It was a cold, wet evening and my mum-in-law was lying bleeding from a head wound.

“I wanted to move her to her house but the NHS advice was to leave her where she was as she had a head injury.

“After about an hour-and-a-half she was getting colder and if we hadn’t moved her there was a risk of hypothermia.

“A lady provided a chair and we transported her back to her house. There were a couple of police officers and they were making calls, trying to speed things up. The ambulance eventually came about 9.20pm. The delay is scandalous.”

Alda had X-rays and received 10 stitches in a head wound, before being released from hospital early on Friday.

An ambulance service spokeswoman said: “At the time of this call, we were experiencing a high level of demand which meant we were unable to respond to the patient as quickly as we would have liked.

“We will be apologising to the patient directly and we will be undertaking a review of the circumstances.”